Saturday, April 25, 2015

Vegan Life Magazine, issue 5 (May 2015)

I receive complimentary digital copies of Vegan Life, which allows me to post reviews with screenshots included. My reflections on the magazine are entirely my own.

For various reasons that I won't bore you with, I have spent a lot of time on public transport this week. Normally I am very fortunate with my commute to work, cycling (a 30-35 minute journey) on 3 days per week and catching the train (a 15 minute journey) on the other 2 days. Thus, from Monday through Friday, I may spend just 1 hour on public transport. This week I have spent over 5! I have thus been grateful to have this latest edition of Vegan Life Magazine to read en route.

As always, there are lots of appealing recipes and interesting articles to browse through. I tend to share 'trivia' pieces in my reviews and there were plenty of highlights there as well. One such example? Vegan meatballs are coming to Ikea. I am already prone to extended Ikea visits, so this addition to their menu may see me setting out for all day outings to my nearest store.

I was also pleased to see that Australia is fighting again to ban live animal exports. This isn't a new issue, but it is a heartbreaking one and the latest campaign to stop it is reportedly the biggest ever. I truly hope it is successful.

In the new product stakes, it was great to see that British quinoa will be hitting supermarket shelves soon (if not already). I recently read about some of the the downsides of new 'trendy' grains, including increased agricultural damage to the areas growing the crops, reduced food supplies for the local people, and high food miles as we ship our quinoa in from South America. There are counter-arguments to those concerns too, but at the end of the day, local crops will help offset some of the issues.

British quinoa, squeezy hot chocolate, and chai syrup

Vegan squeezy hot chocolate is less whole grain focused but, I confess, just as appealing to read about! I'll be keeping an eye out for that as well. The same applies to chai spiced syrup; I often find drinking syrups too sickly sweet, but I'd be keen to look at the ingredient list for this acclaimed chai mix and test it out. Does anyone know the Henny and Joe brand?

looks like great reading for PT. hope that the vegan meatballs reach ikea here though we only go very rarely lately. british quinoa sounds interesting - I had heard something about it being grown in Western Australia and when I do a quick google it seems they are trialling it.

You definitely need good reading material when you're stuck on public transport. You also need it when you have to sit poolside as your son does five 90-minute swim squads per week! I'm totally with you on live exports. While I do also want to support Australian farmers, it is not right to transport any animal across the seas xx

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